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AAK! Policies (Read This First)

THE MOST IMPORTANT POLICY

As the editor-in-chief of Ask a Korean!, the Korean will do whatever the hell he damn well pleases with this blog. The operation of every aspect of this blog will be completely up to TK's arbitrary and capricious whim. This rule applies to all the policies and rules stated below: that is, the Korean will freely ignore those rules and policies whenever the hell he damn well pleases. Telling TK what to do with this blog will be the swiftest course to getting banned from this blog.

As you are asking a question, reading or commenting on this blog, please keep the following policies in mind:

QUESTIONS POLICY

The Korean accepts questions ONLY through email. Any question asked ANYWHERE ELSE (e.g. comment board, Facebook wall, Twitter, Ask.fm, etc.) will be generally ignored, subject only to THE MOST IMPORTANT POLICY.

Once the Korean receives your email, he will decide whether it should be answered privately in a reply email, or publicly through a blog post. The Korean tries to reply all emails within two weeks, although in practice a reply can happen any time within 5 minutes, three weeks and never.

For emails that deserve a post, the Korean gives a short answer to them in a private email, then later writes a longer, more detailed post. Thanks to all of your questions and support, as of February 18, 2014, the Korean is sitting on more than 1,500 emails earmarked for a post or a series. Because of this volume, the Korean can no longer guarantee that he will write the posts on this blog based on the order of the questions received. Instead, like everything else in the blog, the order in which the questions are answered will depend on the Korean's arbitrary and capricious whim.If your question is particularly time-sensitive, let the Korean know and he will consider answering it quickly and/or bumping the email up the line.If your email is featured on a post, your email may be edited to make the question clearer and more applicable to the general readership.

The Korean's email is askakorean@gmail.com. Please note that the Korean no longer checks askakorean@hotmail.com, which had to be abandoned as it was overwhelmed by spam emails.

Please remember the following points when asking the Korean:

1. You are writing an email with a question to a blog that publicly gives answers. You never know which one the Korean would publicly answer. If you are squeamish about the possibility of sharing your problems with the whole world, don't send your question. Although the Korean will not reveal any personal information, please write with caution. You may also ask the Korean not to write a post about your question. If your question is particularly stupid, it will be featured in the annual "Best of the Worst" list and ridiculed mercilessly.

2. Please check your spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Bad English really annoys the Korean. The Korean learned to speak English at age 16; there is no reason why you should be a worse writer than the Korean. Exceptions are made for those who do not use English as the first language, but poorly composed questions will be either ignored, or publicly ridiculed.

3. Search the blog before asking. The Korean so far answered thousands of questions, and hundreds of them are on this blog. There is a good chance that someone asked your question previously. The search bar is on the right sidebar of the blog.

4. Do NOT email over and over again. That will guarantee that the Korean will never address your question.

5. Do NOT send a huge number of questions at the same time. The Korean is not a gumball machine that spits out 20 gumballs for 20 quarters. He needs the time to think and research about each question. Please be considerate--you are not the only one with questions, and the Korean cannot spend his whole life answering your questions.

6. Do NOT expect TK to do your homework for you. If you have a research project from your school, you are the one who has to do the research. If you are a corporate analyst, don't expect me to do your work for you unless you are paying me your salary.

7. Please do your own Google search. It's not even hard.

8. For translations, the Korean has "10-second" rule. The Korean is, among other things, a professional translator. It costs money to hire him. He is NOT available to translate anything that takes longer than 10 seconds to do so--i.e. one or two sentences.

9. Please give your first name or a hilarious pen name. Otherwise, you will be called "Anonymous Coward".

COMMENTS POLICY

The Korean believes that intelligent discussions can be had on the Internet, but only as long as there are strictly enforced rules conducive to such discussions. Please only leave comments that are relevant to the discussion made in the post. (As a corollary, please try hard to actually figure out what the original post is trying to say.) Do not make any personal attacks toward other commenters, and do not troll. Violators of these policies will be banned from this blog.

The Korean reads every comment submitted to this blog, no matter how old the original post was. Just like everything else in the blog, whether or not the Korean will address or respond to your comment is entirely dependent on his arbitrary and capricious whim. To prevent spam comments, comments submitted to posts older than 60 days are subject to moderation.

FAIR USE / MEDIA / PROMOTIONS / BOOK REVIEW POLICY

The Korean is the sole owner and copyright holder of all original materials on the blog. You are welcome to quote or link to any part of this blog, as long as proper attribution and a link (if referred to online) are provided. If you are re-posting the posts on this blog through an automated RSS feed, please attribute to this blog clearly in order to avoid the impression that the Korean is writing for your website. For a reprint of a post on your media, please send the Korean an email for permission.

The Korean intends to write anonymously for the foreseeable future. If you are a member of the media whose policies require the identity of the interviewee, do not bother asking for an interview. You can check out the Korean's previous media appearances to get a sense of what kind of interviews with which the Korean does feel comfortable.

Cross-links on this blog are only available for the blogs that the Korean personally loves. Please do not send any cross-link request, as you will be ignored. The Korean will find you instead.

If you want Ask a Korean! to promote an event or a product, you are free to submit it to the Korean's attention. But please note that the Korean will only promote things that he really, truly likes on a personal level--which means promotions on this blog will be arbitrary and capricious to the Korean's whim, just like everything else on the blog.

Similarly, if you want Ask a Korean! to review a book or an article, you are free to submit to TK's attention. He will read it if he is interested, and will review it if he likes it.

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About TK

The Korean is a Korean American living in Washington D.C. / Northern Virginia. He lived in Seoul until he was 16, then moved to Los Angeles area. The Korean refers to himself in the third person because he thinks it sounds cool.